We have always wanted to reproduce the world around us, beginning with cave drawings to painting on canvas and eventually leading to the invention of photography. Now everyone has a camera, whether it’s simply the one on your phone, a point-and-shoot or a digital SLR. We have all these tools to capture moments in our lives and the people who are a part of it. These photographic processes are a snapshot into the evolution of one of the most important inventions of the nineteenth century.

As transformative as photography has been to our culture, it wouldn't have been possible without the camera. From the Camera Obscura, to the Daguerreotype Camera (now one of the most expensive cameras in the world), to the panoramic camera each has brought with it a new phase of capturing our lives and the world around us.

Although it is true that the invention of photography and the equipment used to capture the photo are important, without the photographer there would be no image. Today, we are all photographers. With our cell phones, digital or SLR film cameras, and iPads the smallest moments of our lives can be captured. However, at the beginning of photography, the one behind the camera, under the drape was not only a technician, they were artists too. From portraits to landscapes to events including the horrors of War, all have been brought to life because of the photographer.

A photo has re-emerged of John Qunicy Adams that was taken On March 16,1843 by Philip Hass, photographer. It is a daguerrotype (silver plate portrait). This photo was taken less than 4 years after the discovery/invention of photography.

Other than the very first type of photograph, the Daguerreotype, the photographic image first was captured on a negative. The earliest negatives were glass plate. It wasn't until 1889 that the first flexible film or Nitrocellulose/Nitrate film was invented by Eastman Kodak in 1889.

Although I didn't know his name, as a student of history, I have been in awe of his photographs for decades.

Mathew Brady opened his first photographic office in 1844. To his studios in New York and Washington, D. C., flocked politicians, generals, actors, and actresses. Anyone who was anyone sat to “have their likeness taken” by Brady and his assistants, several of whom, including Timothy O’Sullivan and Alexander Gardner, were destined for fame in their own right.

Several years ago, I had a researcher bring in a panorama photograph. These photos are familiar to me, commonly used to take photos of large groups of people, but this researcher asked more than "what is this". He asked me, "how was it made". With a bit of hunting I found the Library of Congress's 1992 reenactment of taking a panoramic photos. They used a Cirkut camera, c. 1890.

One side of a very clean glass plate is covered with a thin layer of collodion, then dipped in a silver nitrate solution. The plate is exposed to while still wet. (Also known as a "wet plate" process) The plate is then developed and fixed. The resulting negative, when viewed against a black background, appears to be a positive image. The back is usually coated with black varnish or mounted in the case against a black cloth, making the image appear quite dark.

The Ambrotype is much less expensive to produce than the Daguerreotype.